Experience Inter-World Travel Through the Eyes of an Artist...

We tend to assume that we all live in the same world, all see the same things and all experience them in much the same way. It’s a very helpful assumption. For one thing, conversation would become extremely tricky if we couldn’t assume that the people we are speaking to will understand the things we talk about in the same way that we do.

Of course, the fact is that conversations do become very tricky precisely because people often have such very different ideas about the same things. Sometimes it isn’t all that obvious. Sometimes it is bafflingly obvious. You know the kind of thing...

She says, “Just look at that!”

He says, “What?”

She answers, “That hill! The light through the long grass! The tranquility!”

He replies, “I see a couple of sheep in a ruddy field. Aren’t you hungry yet?”

Now, depending on your point of view that conversation is either taking place between someone with the soul of an artist and someone with no soul at all or else between someone with a very annoying tendency to bang on about the romantic scenery when it is already past time for dinner and someone a good deal more practical. The truth is that neither of them is actually ‘right’. They simply live in completely different worlds. What is apparent to one simply does not exist for the other.

To a great or lesser degree, in fact, this will always be the case with any two people. None of us lives in quite the same world as anyone else. This is because none of us perceives the world in quite the same way as anyone else. (You can check with any decent scientist or you take our word for it; it’s true.)

So what does this have to do with art and inter-world travel?

Well, it means that, whether or not there are worlds to explore out in space, there are definitely other worlds all around us, all the time. The worlds inside other people. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to see and to experience just some of those worlds? But unless you’ve perfected the art of the Vulcan mind meld, those other worlds must remain inaccessible.

With one exception. (You know where this is going, of course!)

The exception is when an artist gives expression to his or her own world through the act of creating a painting, or drawing, or sculpture or some other form of artistic construction. Through art, we are able to enter directly into the world the artist sees, a world entirely unique and otherwise inaccessible.

Let’s take one or two of our own artists to illustrate...

For instance, in the work of Jeremy Houghton you will see a world made of light and space and movement instead of hard physical form. In fact, science yells us this is a truer vision of the world than the one our senses present to us. Seeing the world Houghton shows us through his painting, the world as he sees it, is to see the world forever differently. Perhaps to see the world a little more as it really is.

Then there are the seascapes of Melanie McDonald which capture the point at which sea and air and land dissolve into a kind of continuum. Once you have seen the ‘dissolving point’ in her paintings you cannot help seeing it when you walk along a seashore. We could go on but you get the idea...

This is one reason why running an art gallery is such a thrill. It allows constant access to all the new and very different worlds which our artists offer.

The next best thing, of course, is taking advantage of an art gallery, (like ours for instance!), and exploring some of those worlds from time to time as a visitor. And who wouldn’t want to make time for a little inter-world travel?